Some Remake Rumors...

[Wolf Kanno]

So an anonymous list of tidbits concerning the remake has been circulating around, and while I feel that everyone should take these tidbits with a grain of salt, I'll admit that nothing actually sounds too far-fetched at the moment either.

• Game will be split into two parts, with Episode 1 ending at the First Disc ending and Episode 2 being the second and third discs respectively.
• Materia will appear on most weapon types. Though materia is equipped on accessories as well, accessories will not be shown on character models. All weapons have unique models that will be shown on the field.
• Different weapons have different Triangle Heavy Hit animations. Melee combat is rumored to be performing combos with one button and then using a triangle heavy hit as a combo finisher to get the bulk damage. These finishers can also be Limit Breaks if the right conditions are met.
• Magic will consume both MP and part of the ATB. You get more ATB bars as the game progresses.
• Summons will be mostly cutscenes like the original.
• There is a new summon, Amarok, who looks like a giant wolf and causes darkness status effects and damage.
• Overworld map will be seamless, but separated into zones.
• Vehicles like the Tiny Bronco will still be available and work like they in the original.
• Items can be found in the overworld, and chocobos will also still be found there as well.
• The development team has spent a lot of time making the dwellings feel "lived in" and distinct. Cosmo Canyon will have dust storms and Upper Junon will feel more like a military base than a town.
• Sephiroth's appearance will be very limited until the Kalm flashback, you'll hear his voice and see glimpses of his silhouette during Cloud's breakdowns in Midgard, but you won't see all of him until the flashback.
• The HP shown during the last trailer is likely going to change between that trailer and the final product.
• There will be a demo released after next months showcase and post E3. You'll need a PSN+ membership to play it.
• Monster redesigns have been done, but most of them should still be recognizable. Despite that, some monsters have been removed or changed locations. For instance, the Ghosts will no longer appear in the Train Graveyard.
• Shin-Ra HQ has fewer playable floors than the original, but there will be more content on the available floors to make up for it and make the player feel like the party has to "fight their way up there".
• Tifa's design is pretty true to the original, her face will be close to her Advent Children redesign and materia does appear on her gloves.
• Cait Sith's design is mostly the same. His Limit Break will apparently not change either. Also the first part of his name seems to be pronounced as "Ket"
• Gold Saucer will have games unlock based on certain events in the game, much like the original. They also want the place to feel more grand and relaxing.
• Red XIII's "clone" idea from the scrapped early story drafts may have been incorporated in. There are now two clones called Cobalt XIV and Indigo XV who will appear in the game and must be defeated before he joins the team. There isn't much detail, so these two can simply just be a boss fight.
• Cid does not physically appear to smoke in the game like he did in the original, though it will be heavily implied he does smoke. His abusive nature to Shera has also been toned down as the staff felt his original aggressiveness was unnecessary.
• Yuffie and Vincent are no longer optional. It does appear you can recruit them early but there will be a point in the game you have to recruit both of them. It's implied Yuffie will automatically join before Rocket Town if the player hasn't already.
• Cloud will wear a dress and wig for a particular scene but it will fade in/out to black when you change.
• The squatting minigame is still in the game.
• The episodes will run about $59.99 USD a piece.
• SE has already informed retailers to begin pre-orders.

Again, I would state that this is all just hearsay, but I do feel that this info paints a rather rosy idea of what the game will be like. Also, there was a business report released earlier this month that signaled this game would likely not be released until summer of next year at the earliest, so don't get your hopes up for 2019 release.

[Fynn]

The ket thing has been canon before... I think?

[Psychotic]

Yep, ok, sure, this is fine. Yep. That too. Okay. Sure. Right on.

Red XIII's "clone" idea from the scrapped early story drafts may have been incorporated in. There are now two clones called Cobalt XIV and Indigo XV who will appear in the game and must be defeated before he joins the team. There isn't much detail, so these two can simply just be a boss fight.

what

[Psychotic]

wait what the smurf that was an ACTUAL THING

[Fynn]

See, it took them a couple tries before they ended up with A Talking Cat

And they haven’t stopped there, judging by those numbers - and I mean, can you blame them?

[Psychotic]

See, it took them a couple tries before they ended up with A Talking Cat

And they haven’t stopped there, judging by those numbers - and I mean, can you blame them?

Taupe LXVIII is where it's at.

[Fynn]

Anyway, if these rumors are true, then I may actually start getting a little bit more interested in this remake.

Still, splitting it like that is still a really bad deal, IMO. Even with what’s on disc 3, the second disc of FFVII is much more lacking, both in the quality and in the amount of content compared to disc 1. They’d really need to work pretty hard to justify having both be priced like that.

[Lord Golbez]

It's hard to determine where would be a better place to stop though. What's the actual halfway point of the game? Nibelheim maybe? I suppose if they added some content there, they could potentially make that work as the stopping point. Maybe if they add a bit of Zack foreshadowing it could work well as the disc endpoint.It would put a lot of heavy stuff on the second part though. Disc 2 actually has a significant amount of solid content between the glacier area, junon, and the lifestream. The problem it's punctuated by sections that feel kind of empty and fetch-questy.

[Fynn]

The problem is what’s there is the huge materia quest, the very premise of which is mind-numbingly stupid, unless they do some very thorough rewriting around it

[Wolf Kanno]

wait what the smurf that was an ACTUAL THING

Yes, in the early drafts, there were clones of Red XIII, and they were meant to reappear a few times over the course of the story in a subplot that got cut in the original drafts. In fact, according to the FF Wiki, the clones were actually named that, so perhaps they just restored the subplot. Honestly, the early drafts of VII are pretty weird. Sakaguchi's idea for the game made the game sound more like Parasite Eve, Aerith and Sephiroth went back and forth between being either siblings (which is why they bear a slight resemblance) or lovers (Sephy would have been Aerith's missing boyfriend instead of Zack who didn't exist until later draft Nojima did), and Jenova was originally conceived to be just a certain gene within the brain the Cetra figured out how to harness to give them magical powers at the cost of their sanity... which isn't far from the little details given about how Magitek Knights were made in VI or what happened to Melissa Pierce in Parasite Eve.

Anyway, if these rumors are true, then I may actually start getting a little bit more interested in this remake.

Still, splitting it like that is still a really bad deal, IMO. Even with what’s on disc 3, the second disc of FFVII is much more lacking, both in the quality and in the amount of content compared to disc 1. They’d really need to work pretty hard to justify having both be priced like that.

Eh, content wise, I feel they would be roughly the same if we're merging Disc 2 and 3. Especially if the side quests remain, then the second part should be about the same. Though I really hope they do a better job justifying the Big Materia quest, assuming they don't just go completely off rails and rewrite the entire second act.

[MJN SEIFER]

Most of this sounds promising, and if true should make the remake a good game (or "good games" - I still don't see the point in separating them, but at least is should only be two parts.) It is good (if these are true) that they are still doing the cross dressing, because some people thought they'd have to take it out, so it's good if they keep it in, as it isn't supposed to be offensive, and shouldn't be seen as such.

The new summon, Amarok sounds cool, so I hope this is true - I feel I've heard the name before, though... just let me check... Yeah, I had the name noted down for my RPG, no idea from looking at it what it's going to be, other than a random enemy's name, though. Either way, it sounds like a cool summon. I'm also intrigued that they're trying the Cobalt XIV and Indigo XV storyline again (yes, I had heard of it before), it would be interesting to see what they do, if they do it, and a remake is actually a good place to include cut storylines if you can fit them in.

Is the game going to be ATB after all? I thought it was going to be completely real-time, or is there another type of ATB, that I don't know?

The problem is what’s there is the huge materia quest, the very premise of which is mind-numbingly stupid, unless they do some very thorough rewriting around it

Yeah, the huge materia section is kind of a weird one... it's good in that it presents closure for Cid's and possibly Barrett's storylines (the latter depends on your success), but there's still the thing that they are preventing an attempt to destroy meteor, even if it is the bad guys doing it. I think it was because they can't waste materia on something that might not even work, so maybe if they make it even more obvious from the beginning that it wouldn't work? Like maybe state from the beginning or so (of meteor being a thing) that it can only be destroyed by magic, even if the game doesn't tell you what kind of magic spell to use just yet?

[Lord Golbez]

Remember that the planet is already dying without Sephiroth's involvement. Granted that Meteor is the more imminent threat, but I feel like people too critical of what Cloud's team does there are maybe not taking so seriously the threat that Shinra's Mako consumption poses. My take on it is that they think it probably won't work and that, even if it does, the loss of that much crystallized Mako energy will be too devastating for the planet. On the other hand, Shinra execs really don't take seriously the threat their actions pose, so it makes sense they would try to tackle the problem with a powerful weapon at their disposal. So I don't think it's terrible from a plot standpoint. However, on a gameplay level it begins to feel a little too much like fetch quests.

[Wolf Kanno]

The issue is that the very creation of the Big Materia would drain the planet of its life force, so I feel the damage is already pretty much done, unless there is a means to reduce materia back to pure mako energy the plot never tells. While materia does occur naturally, it's also stated to be incredibly rare to occur, whereas Shin-Ra is mass producing it. Granted, using materia also drains the life out of the planet, but that was something stated in interviews discussing why Cloud and Co. don't use materia in Advent Children, so it's unknown if this information was something the developers knew when they originally wrote the game, or something they conjured up for the remakes.

Honestly, I feel the quest would be an easy fix if they simply changed around a few parts of the scenario. All they need to do is have the party consult Bugenhagen about the Holy Materia before the quest really gets underway, and maybe have him add a line about how Shin-Ra's plot is pointless and won't work. Would largely fix one of the most glaring plot holes in VII, besides the existence of the Black Materia, or how Sephiroth's plan is kind of counter-intuitive in places.

Speaking of glaring plot problems, I hope they fix the logic of Cid's recruitment as well. It just never made sense that Rufus traveled all the way to Rocket Town just to commandeer Cid's plane. It's established he already has an entire air force, those helicopters would be much superior for tracking down someone, and why is the head CEO bothering with grunt work? The whole scenario is pure silly RPG logic.

As for the battle system, it's unknown at the moment how it actually works. The rumors I posted suggests it works on the same logic as the ATB gauge from FFXIII, where the characters can perform multiple actions with each action costing a piece of the ATB bar. Once you're out of ATB gauge, you have to wait for it it to refill. Depending on whether the game gives it a more action game feel with dodge rolls and blocking like Crisis Core, the game may end up playing a bit more like a flashier Dark Souls.

[Mr Gashtacular]

whats the word on tifa's boobs also squatting minigame = im in

[Wolf Kanno]

I'm honestly surprised the rumor of a playable demo isn't getting more attention in this thread.